about myself. That would be egotism. But the mystery of the
professor troubles me to this day. A grave, earnest gentleman, the
father of a family, I saw him with my own eyes put that ridiculous
pasteboard mask over his head. Later on--a good deal later on--I
found myself walking again with him through silent star-lit streets.
Where he had been in the interval, and who then was the strange
creature under the Chinaman's mask, will always remain to me an
unsolved problem.



DO WE LIE A-BED TOO LATE?



It was in Paris, many years ago, that I fell by chance into this
habit of early rising. My night--by reasons that I need not enter
into--had been a troubled one. Tired of the hot bed that gave no
sleep, I rose and dressed myself, crept down the creaking stairs,
experiencing the sensations of a burglar new to his profession,
unbolted the great door of the hotel, and passed out into an unknown,
silent city, bathed in a mysterious soft light. Since then, this
strange sweet city of the dawn has never ceased to call to me. It
may be in London, in Paris again, in Brussels, Berlin, Vienna, that I
have gone to sleep, but if perchance I wake before the returning tide
of human life has dimmed its glories with the mists and vapours of
the noisy day, I know that beyond my window blind the fairy city, as
I saw it first so many years ago--this city that knows no tears, no
sorrow, through which there creeps no evil thing; this city of quiet
vistas, fading into hope; this city of far-off voices whispering